


And Yet I Scream

by inkcharm



Category: Moon Child (2003)
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Gen, Gore, M/M, Madness, Mental Breakdown, POV First Person, Presumed Dead, Self-Mutilation, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:24:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkcharm/pseuds/inkcharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is like a tomb, far beneath the earth. No one will be able to hear me. And yet I scream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

I am floating.

Life and death, mortality and monstrosity are far behind me now. I can still feel them on my skin, like droplets of water that have yet to dry. It is not an entirely unpleasant sensation, knowing that these words are losing more importance which each fleeting moment. Time has lost its meaning as well. Who would be able to measure time right here, where eternity is now, yesterday kisses tomorrow and seconds never pass. There are no shapes here, no sounds, no colours, no taste. I do not know where I am and I do not care. I am nowhere in particular and yet everywhere at once.

It is of no consequence who I was. It does not matter who I may become. I just am, and that is enough.

I can stay here and lose myself in the strange nothingness. Thoughts drip from the confinements of my mind, wrapping around me like silk, soft and without demand. I can pick them up whenever I feel like it; they will not be lost. This way of existence knows no bounds, no limitations. Physical restrictions are gone and they have left no trace behind, as though they have never existed in the first place.

The entity that is me has no questions to ask, because the answers are already there. There will be no judgement. This is neither heaven nor hell. I do not live. I have not died. I do not care. I am beyond caring. I just am.

I have no memory. I have no hopes, no dreams or desires or urges. I only float, everywhere and nowhere at once. I do not go anywhere, nor have I left anything behind. I am limitless and I am centered and I am forgetting how to feel. It is good. This place, that is no place because it does not exist, does not know emotion, and I am becoming one with it.

I am.

And yet...

Something tugs. Something moves inside of me where nothing should be moving for I do not have a body. And since I do not have a body, I can not feel my broken spine slowly mending itself.

I can not.

And yet...

I am...

…

… Kei.

I am Kei.

And yet...

Slowly, I open my eyes. Darkness surrounds me, but I can see through it as one would see through... the thought leaves me and I nearly sob. I can not die, but somehow I feel that I have lost the one opportunity of passing on that I ever had. Broken bones set, severed nerves reconnect. I take a breath and let the memories and the feelings and the scent and the physical limitations catch up with me again. But with them comes the pain, horrible pain and terrifying realization as I remember what has happened and where I am.

It is like a tomb, far beneath the earth, several tons of stone enclosing me in a tiny space that leaves not enough room to stretch out or raise my head. I am caged, buried not alive but not dead either, and I have eternity stretching ahead of me with mocking laughter.

No one will be able to hear me. I know that. There is no one here but me.

And yet I scream...

 

 


	2. Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please don't. Please let this be a nightmare. Please let me out.

The scream bounces off the rocks, tears through darkest silence and slips through tiny cracks. Finally it disappears somewhere far away and leaves me alone once more. The rational part of my mind is fully aware of the fact that screaming is not going to help. It is a poor reaction to my current situation. 

 

I lick my lips, trying to stall time. That is right, I am trying to fool myself, trying to push the thoughts about my situation further from my mind. An attempt made even worse by the fact that I am fully aware of this. 

 

No. 

 

Stop. 

 

Do not go there. Do not think about it. 

 

There. All good. 

 

So I close my eyes and concentrate on feeling my tongue travel across my lips. 

 

They are dry and cracked. A faint layer of dust and dirt has settled on them. I am probably filthy all over. I run my tongue over my lips a second time, to clean and to wet them and to distract. There's a faint trace of blood. I must have split my lip earler when... 

 

A third time, then. 

 

I believe I have already run out of ideas. 

 

Think, Kei. Not about that, but about anything else. Please. 

 

Everything is going to be fine. 

 

Ever so slowly, I flex my fingers. All good there. My bones have stopped shifting and resetting, it seems, but the pain still lingers. I wonder how long I was out. It must have taken my wounds quite some time to heal, seeing as I have not fed in a week. Speaking of which, I think my hunger will likely be a problem in the very near future. 

 

Not a good train of thought, either. 

 

Thinking about ways to keep myself from thinking about my situation once more. I wonder why I am doing this. It would be better to think about my situation, to make plans for escape, to face reality and just get on with it. Where is my usual bravado? Where is the mocking smirk I show towards the rest of the world? Then again, why bother. The rocks will certainly not tremble should I show them just how unimpressed I am by their antics. 

 

Just take a deep breath, Kei. 

Everything will be fine. 

 

Please. 

 

For a moment I concentrate on breathing. Air caresses my lips, slips past them. It tickles my tongue. With my eyes closed, I follow it down my airway, and let the breath curl and swell in my lungs, expanding them, pushing outwards as far as my body will allow. Then I hold until it almost hurts. Gently, every so gently, I guide the breath outwards again, until it leaves my mouth in what would almost feel like a kiss were it not too soft and too fleeting. My breath dissolves into thin air. 

 

I do not need to breathe, of course. I am not alive, after all, and the lack of rotting is more or less the only thing that sets me apart from the corpses that need to be buried. 

 

Speaking of which. 

 

I try to remain perfectly calm as I let my gaze wander. The trip is disappointingly short. There is solid rock in front, above and below me. I reach out to touch the wall of my tiny little grave and find that there's not even an arm's length between the rock and me. It's rough to the touch, not smooth. Seems that when the hideout collapsed, it took part of the surrounding landmass with it. Inwards. Towards me. On top of me. Great. 

 

I can feel a smooth wall against my back. Might have been part of the floor; the walls were made to look and feel rougher, an imitation of natural caves that just failed to convince. The guys we have been trying to rob must have had a sense for the dramatic. Hence all the explosives scattered across the place. 

 

Really, not even I as a vampire would ever dream of living in a place that goes nine stories downwards beneath the surface. Especially not when that place is full of explosives. And even less when there's a lunatic in there who has failed to eat the drugged pizza and in a moment of utter confusion and panic decides that a detonation would be just what the place needs. 

 

As soon as I get out of here, I will give Toshi a proper trashing for dragging this job out of the murky waters it lurked in. 

 

Toshi. Sho. Son. 

 

No. 

 

Please. 

 

Nononononononono. 

 

Pain explodes in my head and I remember that sudden movements are not an option when there is solid rock inches above your head. Someone whimpers – I reckon it must be me, but it sounds too frightened and weak to be me, really – and I bring my hands up to my face. 

 

They probably haven't made it. Even I have not been able to escape this death trap, and I am the vampire. Speed and strength far surpassing that of the humans, I should have been able to make it. I should have been able to save them. I should have protected them.

 

There is no way they made it out in time.

 

They are dead. They have to be dead. The real kind of death, the one that rips you out of the living world, leaving nothing behind but a hole where there should have been someone.

 

It is my fault.

 

Once again I live while everyone else dies.

 

I am a monster. A murderer. The blood of my friends, my family is on my hands. Blue eyes will never sparkle again. Laughter will never reach my ears again. They will never drag me along to beaches again, never force me to eat human food again, never... they will never see the sun again. Just like me. And I'm still here. I'm all that's left. Me – and Yi-Che – and Shinji. And I will not even be able to tell them. My breath catches in my throat.

 

No.

 

Please, no.

 

This is why I need to try not to think.

 

Not to feel.

 

It hurts.

 

Dead. Forever gone. Holes where there used to be somone.

 

They have been trapped in here, just like me, and just like my body was shattered beyond repair so were theirs. Only they could not have survived that.

 

Come back.

 

Please.

 

My hands shake badly as I reach out, touching solid rock once more. I push with all my remaining strength. I can't give up. Not yet. I need to dig myself out, somehow, I need to find them, I need to bring them home, I need to tell Yi-Che, I need to tell Shinji, I need, I need, I need, I want, I beg, I plead, I scream and no one answers.

 

Sho. Toshi. Son.

 

Where are you?

 

Please.

 

Come back to me. Help me. I am not done protecting you. I am not done watching you grow and live and move away from me. I am not done being close to you. I am not done loving all of you, children as you are, annoying as you are, wonderful as your are. I am not done being the odd one out in this strange group of friends. I am not done.

 

And yet...

 

I am.

 

My fingers scratch across stone. I can feel my fingernails tearing and ripping as I try to claw something loose. I can smell dead blood welling up where I scrape the skin of my fingers. I twist in my tiny grave, I kick, I lash out, I thrash.

 

Please.

 

Let me out.

 

I need to look for them.

 

I need to make sure they find peace.

 

Please.

 

PLEASE!

 

I do not feel anything anymore. I do not want to. Both the human and the monster inside of me scream for the blissfull oblivion I floated in when my body was too weak to hold onto the remains of my immortal soul. I want to go back, just so that I will not imagine the horrible, painful deaths my friends have faced. I want to save them. I want to join them.

 

I don't know how much time has passed. The next thing I am really aware of is staring at my hands. Broken fingers, white bone, torn flesh. The blood is grey in the darkness of my tomb. The scent is sickening.

 

„Please don't“, I whisper, but the wounds heal anyway. I have twisted myself halfway around, facing what I will call a ceiling for lack of proper words. More like the stone slab on an old-fashioned sarcophagus. There are bloody handprints above me. Mine.

 

When someone digs this place up they will find the skeletons of my friends. They will throw them away or sell them or make medicine out of them that does not work. They will also find me. And when someone comes looking for them after that they will find their bloodless, mutilated bodies, because I will be too hungry by then to hold myself back, and bloody handprints everywhere.

 

When someone digs me up. 

 

I squeeze my eyes shut. 

 

No one will dig us up. Neither me nor the remains of my friends, rotting away somewhere. Sho probably close enough that I will notice the smell sooner or later. I do not know where Toshi and Son where when the celing above me collapsed, broke too many bones inside of me and took me and the floor down, ever downwards. Sho... I believe he was close to the stairway on the far end of the room. We only had two stories left above us. Two stories. I think I saw the idiot moving back towards me when I was broken and dragged under. Idiot. 

 

My idiot. 

 

That burning and stinging in my eyes... 

 

It's only dust and dirt and I wipe it away quickly. 

 

No one will dig any of us up. 

 

In Mallepa, whenever a building collapses (and buildings tend to do that around here because these days people have other problems than those of architectural nature) the people just leave it that way and build other things on top. 

 

They will build houses on top of my friends' graves. 

 

They will build houses on top of me. 

 

Please don't. 

 

Please let this be a nightmare. 

 

Please let me out. 

 

Please tell me my friends made it at least. Someone. Anyone. 

 

Someone sobs. 

 

But it can't be me. 

 

I don't cry. 

 

The rational part of my mind tells me I'm still trying to deny the situation. I'm still trying to find ways not to ponder the concept of spending eternity in here. Thinking about my dead friends, thrashing, hurting myself, trying to remember how I managed to end up here, crying. 

As I open my eyes they are dry. 

 

There. Not stalling anymore. I can face this. I am not in denial. 

 

I am not. 

 

Just... 

 

Let me scream. 

 

Let me weep for my friends. 

 

Let somebody hear me. 

 

Please... 


	3. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep only brings nightmares, jumbled images and feelings.

It is a well known fact that the human body has some sort of inner clock. Wenn it grows dark outside, your body will tell you it is time to go to bed. In summer, when the days are longer, you will probably not feel as tired as in winter, when it gets dark so much earlier. Vampires are the same, only reversed, of course. The reason I sleep during the day and am awake at nighttime is not just my vulnerability towards sunlight. When the sun rises, I simply grow tired. 

 

There is no sunrise in my tomb far beneath the earth. 

 

I have no way to judge the passing of time. Yes, occasionally I will feel fatigue creeping into my body, dragging me into uncomfortable sleep, my whole figure twisted and cramped due to the tiny room that I have left in between solid stone. But I know I can't rely on my body to know the difference between day and night when I am surrounded by eternal darkness. My senses keep trying to convince me that since it's dark I ought to stay awake. 

 

The natural cycle of sleeping and waking is disrupted down here, and I have no way of judging the passage of time. How long have I been here? 

 

Hours? Days? 

 

It could be weeks for all I know. I don't know how long I sleep, when exhaustion claims me, for without feeding and trapped beneath the earth sleep brings no rest for me. 

 

Sleep only brings nightmares, jumbled images and feelings. 

 

When I close my eyes, I see the dead eyes of all victims, hear their desperate sobs and feel their blood running down my tongue, carrying their hopes and wishes and turning them ashen in my mouth. I see Luka die. I watch Sho, I watch Yi-Che and endure the horrible pain of feeling the loss that is bound to happen, destined to happen, because I am a vampire and no matter who holds my heart, they will not make it beat. It will always be a dead weight in my chest, a place of darkness and regret; the graveyards for my feelings. I feel a pillar of stone collapsing on top of me, snapping my spine and pinning me onto the collapsing floor. Sometimes I hear Sho screaming something that sounds like my name. Always, though, I am conscious of dreaming. Trapped in my own body I see my own past actions unfold, unable to change the events no matter how much I long for it. 

 

The nightmarish visions of killing and death, slaughter and fading life envelope me like silk at first, soft fabric on my naked skin, black on white. However, the silk changes with each face flashing before my eyes, with each life I take although I am begging with myself to stop, with each last human breath ghosting over my cheek and each last drop of blood burning down my throat like acid. The silk changes and becomes a wire, and the wire cuts deep. I stare down at my body and I want to scream, but I can't because this is not real and my nightmares trap me inside myself just as I am trapped beneath the earth. I see my flesh being cut open by the wire. Blood so dark it seems black seeps from the wounds, cold and thick and dead, and stains my pale limbs. I can see the wires cutting ever deeper, I can feel them tightening, forcing themselves deeper into my body, under my skin and towards my bones. And as my wounds close, the wire cuts deeper, becoming a part of myself. I can feel it moving through me, cutting and hurting, too much and never enough, painful and yet too soft, punishment dealt without the visciousness I would inflict upon myself given the chance. I am being torn apart from the inside, and yet I stand in perfect silence. My suffering takes place on the inside and no one who looks my way would know my pain, for this is how it should be. My eyes are wide and my mouth is open, yet I cannot scream, and that is possibly the worst part of this dream. 

 

In my dream, I know that I should stay with Luka. Burn by his side, ending the life that should have ended ages ago when I fell and broke and he could not let me go. In my dream, I always try to make my legs move, but they never carry me towards him. As I stand in the shadows and watch him burn, I fight for control over the events unfolding. I wish to joing him, to move, to call out to him once more, to join in his song and his sorrow and his death. But nothing happens, I just stand in place as long as the ever approaching dawn will allow me to, and then I turn and run, loathing my cowardice and screaming my throat raw with loss and regret. 

 

In my dream I fight to open my mouth, to interrupt Sho and Yi-Che as she tends to his wounds. I yearn to run my tongue over the blood oozing from his wound, I yearn to feel her hands on my cold skin, I yearn for a human's touch to warm me and ease my suffering for only a short while, to ease it in a less gruesome way than feeding. I want to ask them to look at me, I want to ask them to turn their backs on me. I can't stand the thought that they might find happiness with each other. I want to tear them apart, I want them to sort out my conflicting feelings for me that I try to bury, but I know that each time I have dug a fresh grave for an emotion, thinking of them will ruin all my efforts and I'll have to start anew. I yearn for the day when Sho confessed he had not yet been kissed, I long to respond to his unspoken question differently than I did. I yearn for the moment on the beach when we took a photograph, I long not to tell Yi-Che to smile but to ask her to smile for me. I want them to know that I am always wondering if Sho's kiss or Yi-Che's smile for me could have made me remember what it is like to fall in love with someone. But as I witness these scenes I cannot change the actions and words I regret to this day. They will never know. Knowing I have missed all my chances is worse than the wire cutting ever deeper. The part of me that is still able to hope Sho made it weeps at the thought that with me out of the picture they will probably find happiness with each other. 

 

Whenever my dreams turn toward the latest job gone horribly wrong I can't help but rage inside myself as I see the mistakes so clearly. I am not strong enough for a big job for lack of feeding. The job feels wrong, too unusual and too risky. I want to punch Toshi for suggesting it to Sho, who always gets too excited by danger. I want to tell Sho to take care of himself as I usually do, but this time I am too preoccupied with not thinking about the way his heartbeats quickens when we enter the building. The worst part, though, is that when my spine is snapped and my body is crushed I am not able to look up. I need to raise my head, I need to see Sho, see him run for the stairs. The worst part is not knowing, not seeing what he does when the floor gives way. 

 

Each time I wake up there are tears on my cheeks and the dead muscle that is my heart clenches too tightly, too painfully, grows too heavy in my chest. The pressure is too much, but it does not lessen. My heart cannot shatter as long as the wire is wrapped around it so tightly, so painfully. There will be no relief for me, the pain is eternal and with each passing moment I burden myself with more. 

 

And so I try to force myself to stay awake, fully aware how futile the attempt is. Sooner or later I will not be able to fight my own body anymore, no matter what I do. 

 

I have taken it upon myself to make myself as familiar as possible with my surroundings. After all, if I am to spend eternity in here, I might as well be fully aware of my casket, my prison, my hell. It gives me something to do. It keeps my mind away from my dreams and my memories and my fears and my panic. 

 

It keeps me from thinking about the vast eternity stretching ahead of me. 

 

The space I occupy is tiny, to say the least. I can't raise my head more than a few inches before my forehead touches rough stone. Turning around is painful, for I have to twist myself around between the stone above and underneath me forcefully. I don't care about the skin tearing from my shoulders in the process. The wounds will heal, after all. 

 

When I press my back against one wall I am unable to stretch out my arms completely before my palm touches the other wall. At the same time, my legs are always bent at an uncomfortable angle, because although I am small, my tomb is not long enough for me. 

 

My eyes, adjusted to the darkness as they are, have scanned the tiny space to its full extent, including the torn and shredded clothing clinging to the poor bastard trapped in here. Judging from the lack of company, I believe it safe to guess that the poor bastard is me, indeed. 

 

My fingers have found every tiny crack in the stones, every bump in the texture, every irregularity and every jagged edge. I have learned the hard way that the remains of a metal bar are sticking from the rubble around me, nearly impaling myself on it one night. Or day. Or whatever. 

 

Time is a funny thing. I cannot being to say how often I have pictured my boys – and now boys and one girl – growing up, imagining how they would look like as they aged. I envy those able to age. I will always be trapped in this body. In the beginning I found it amusing to tell people I was fourty, amused by the disbelief written all over their faces. No one turns fourty and looks as youthful as I do, after all. But I did not only that. I also turned fifty and decided to stop counting when sixty was looming close to the horizon. Counting the years when you know you'll count for an eternity becomes quite depressing. 

 

I seem to loose focus of my train of thought more and more often down here. 

 

I used to imagine how they would age, trying to foresee the subtle changes in their faces and bodies. Whose hair would fall out first, who'd sport the first wrinkles, whose teeth would fall out first. I have always treasured the image of them together in old age, still laughing together, still bantering. 

 

Would I be with them? When would Son and Yi-Che finally catch up with what Sho, Toshi and Shinji had known all along? How would they react? Would I be the ever youthful one, older than all of them on the inside, yet young enough to be their grandchild on the outside, or would I be the bad memory they'd share? Remember that monster Sho befriended once? The one who would never age. Or would I sit with them, suffering from being called „boy“ and „little one“ but laughing along nonetheless because I loved them and they loved me. 

I believe I prefer the picture that does not include me, simply because somehow it would seem more pure, more real, less tainted. I have always been so scared of watching my friends aging and dying. Now I find myself wishing for the chance to see my family grow old. Even if I could just watch from afar, it would be enough. 

 

How long will it take me to forget their faces? It will happen. 

 

I remember all my victims' faces with shocking clarity. I could tell tales of the stories written in their eyes as I drained their lives. If I ever chose to share the memories I could describe their taste and scent and sound in vivid details. Once I tried to capture them in a sketchbook. But it filled far too quickly for my liking and I grew more and more disgusted with myself. After all, who am I to draw them and keep them with me like that, making them trophies, making each of them a face among many for the world to see. No, it is better to let them stay in my mind and memory, tormenting me and haunting my dreams as it should be. 

 

What makes me feel all the more guilty is the fact that I cannot quite remember the faces of the family and friends I used to have. Whenever I look into a mirror I find myself wondering which parent I used to take after. I never remember. The sound of their voices, the smell of their skin, the details of their faces; the have vanished from my memory over the decades. Sometimes I dream of them, but they always remain lifeless and blank. Other times I believe to recall that I used to be closer to my mother. Then again, maybe that is just wishful thinking, holding onto a fragment that is possibly not even a real memory just so that I can tell myself that I have not forgotten everything. 

 

I don't ever want to dream again. 

 

It's inevitable, though. I can feel exhaustion pulling on me, like chains attached to my mind in an attempt to drag me under. Sleep and think, that's all I can do down here, and I hate it. 

 

Groaning, I roll over again. I wince and hiss softly, as my shoulder is violently dragged across rough stone. With a groan I press my face into the hard ground beneath me as the wound starts healing. It takes longer each time, because I can't feed anymore. 

 

I wonder what will happen. I will never be able to feed again, not even if I want to. The craving cannot be satisfied down here. I am going to starve and I'm going to do it eternally. My only hope is that the beast will grow hungry enough to crush my consciousness and allow me to escape to a state of blissfull nothingness. Then again, hopes are foolish in themselves. Hopes creat expectations and expectations lead to disappointments. 

 

There's no use in hoping that I'll never dream again. 

 

There's no use in hoping that I'll ever escape. 

 

There's no use in hoping that Sho did the impossible and made it out alive. 

 

The silence is too heavy to bear. My tiny space is filled with too much silence where there used to be laughter and banter and joking, heated arguments and delightfully pointless conversation. I lick my lips, and open my eyes – when did they close? I don't want to close my eyes. I don't want to dream. I don't want to. 

 

Slowly, I take a breath. 

 

Then I scream. 

 

As loud as I can. As long as I can. 

 

The sound pierces the heavy silence, rips through it and fills my surroundings. The scream sounds unfamiliar to my sensitive ears and I dimly wonder how long I have gone without making a sound for my own screams to seem so wrong. 

 

When I cut off my own scream to catch my breath again, chest heaving, I realize that I made the silence worse. Where there was a scream that hurt all the way from my heart up my throat and into my ears, now there is that silence again. 

 

I don't want eternal silence. Silence just makes me realize how tired I am. I can't go to sleep. I don't want to. 

So I scream again. And again. And again until my ears are ringing and my throat hurts. Still there is a sound. I realize that it's chocked sobbing. I realize it's coming from me. 

 

„Don't cry, little vampire. Go to sleep. I will watch over your dreams.“

 

I freeze. My sobs stop suddenly, I hold my breath and stare into the darkness with wide eyes. 

 

Who...? 

 

It's not possible. I'm alone. 

 

Am I not? 

 

„Go to sleep. I'm here.“

 

Am I dreaming? Have I fallen asleep without noticing and this is a dream? 

 

Please let this be a dream. 

 

Because if this is not a dream, if this is a real voice I am hearing... 

 

… then I'm afraid I have begun to lose my mind.

 

Let this be a dream. 

 

„Go to sleep.“

 


	4. Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laughter is a haunting sound when it comes from a grave.

I am not quite sure what is happening to me. 

 

There is a voice whispering to me. There is no comfort in that. I am alone in my grave beneath the earth and the voice I’m hearing is my own. 

 

I have started talking to myself as though I was two independent people. 

 

Somebody save me. I can’t lose my mind in here… or can I? 

 

It feels like I’m falling to pieces and I can’t do anything to stop it. What do I cling to for the strength I need? There is nothing down here; even my memories have turned sour because I know I’ll never be able to go back. It’s all gone. I’m buried and life goes on somewhere far above me. I'm dead to the world but I can't die. I have lost them all and I can never follow them. 

 

Maybe I should just let go, allow myself to slip into madness.

 

Somehow the possibility does not seem frightening anymore. Isn't madness my only option in the long run anyway? How can I expect to stay trapped here and stay sane? Madness is not something to protect my mind from shattering until I get out – it's really the only escape I can hope for. Maybe I will lose enough of my mind to become unaware of my surroundings, a tiny escape from the endless torture my cursed existence has become. 

 

A tear slides over my cheek and I close my eyes. The voice comes back… and I start listening. 

 

~*~ 

 

Time has passed once more. Hours. Days. Weeks. I don't know. I can't bring myself to care. Why bother to measure eternity? There's no sense in it. I can't keep track of the time and it does not matter anymore. It's not as though I have a life to lead nowadays. 

 

„Look at that. Isn't it pathetic?“

 

I ignore him. Kei has been trying to talk to me for a while now. Whenever I wake up from the sleep I'm trying so hard to avoid he seems to be there. He just starts talking. It's nonsense, mostly. Sometimes he's talking about a vampire trapped far beneath the earth. 

 

What a ridiculous idea, eh? I almost start laughing before I remember that ridiculous ideas make terrifying realities. 

 

I can feel Kei shifting around in the darkness. He winces as his shoulder is torn open – they really should do something about the ceiling here. It's too low. I've scratched myself raw on a few occasions already, and he is not faring any better. 

 

„Could you please talk to me?“

 

I don't. Why should I start a conversation with him? I have the vague notion that there is a very good reason for it, but his voice distracts me too much and I can't find the energy to concentrate on the matter long enough. Maybe we had a fight once. Or I just find him annoying in general. I don't know what it is exactly, but something about Kei just seems odd and makes me wish he would simply leave me alone. 

 

Alone. 

 

Wait a moment. Wasn't I supposed to be alone? 

 

I can hear Kei sighing. I don't think he's too pleased with my silence, although he has confessed that he prefers that to the vampire's screams. I on the other hand believe that if I had the possibility to choose I'd rather pick the monster than him. At least the monster doesn't try small talk with me. 

 

I can feel his arms wrapping around my middle. I think he's grown thinner; those arms feel somewhat bony. Come to think of it, the vampire does not look much better with its torn clothes and all the dirt. Maybe I shouldn't judge. It's not their fault they're that disgusting. They clearly can't take care of themselves. There's a reason I’m not taking care of them, but that fact has also been slipping from my mind constantly. 

 

„Hey“, he whispers. As usual I don't acknowledge him. „I think the vampire is up to something.“

 

Deep down I know he is right. We both can feel the monster stirring. Something is going to happen and it's not going to be pretty. It should probably upset me that the vampire will not find another victim besides us, but somehow I don't care. I only hope it devours Kei first so that I might enjoy a few more moments of silence before I am torn to pieces myself. 

 

Although the vampire never looks at me I have the feeling it considers me prey. Has it been sizing me up while I was asleep? I am quite small so I'm probably more of a snack than anything else. Kei is the same. Together we'd probably make a decent meal. The thought disturbs me not nearly as much as it probably should. 

 

Luka used to call me bite sized. I found it funny until I became aware of the implications. 

 

„You seem tired. Why don't you sleep?“

 

That again. He knows how reluctant I am to sleep. There's only nightmares and no rest to be found in my sleep. Not that he cares. Maybe he wants me to suffer, sadistic bastard that he is. After a while he starts singing, a lonely song and a pained voice. I wonder why he sounds like that. Everything is fine. He should not be in pain. 

 

He should be... 

 

I think there's something he should be. Or somewhere? I can't pull my thoughts close enough to make sense of them. It's probably not important, though. 

 

„Sleep...“

 

I don't want to. 

 

And yet... 

 

The song wraps around my mind and lulls me into deep slumber. A tear stains my sunken cheek as despite the nightmares looming ahead I find myself wishing never to wake up again. 

 

~*~ 

 

Laughter is what pulls me from my nightmares, soon followed by the sickeningly delicious scent of blood. I open my eyes to see the darkness of my grave smeared with even darker blood. It drips from the ceiling and stains the vampire's hands. What has it done? 

 

The laughter grows high-pitched and horrible as the beast licks its own lips to get a taste of the blood still left there. I can feel bite marks all over my arms where it has tried to still its hunger. Somehow I pity it. Does it not know that I can't feed it? My black, filthy blood must have left an ashen taste in its mouth. After a while I become aware of the pain spreading through my body from where the vampire's claws have ripped me open completely. The shrill laughter turns to desperate sobbing. 

 

I think something is wrong. 

 

„Of course something's wrong!“ Is that a note of hysteria I detect in Kei's voice? Well, that's a new one. He can barely speak. There’s a gurgling noise as though his throat has been damaged. He spits blood with every word. „Can't you see the vampire's fucking lost it? We should put it out of its misery.“

 

The blood covering me is cold and has started to dry. A sudden realization hits me, and Kei seems to reach the same conclusion. 

 

„But it can't die. Ever.“

 

Even if I wanted to, I could not find a response to that. I hear Kei opening his mouth, searching for more words to fill the silence. I know he licks his lips when he finds none just like he always does. So he just presses me into the wall and puts one hand over my mouth to silence the sound bubbling up inside of me. 

 

The vampire can’t die. The vampire is eternal. It will never get out and so it will keep us with it, locked and trapped, shattered pieces of what was once Kei, the man, the monster, smashes and broken in his own grave, not sure he can ever be put back together and even less sure he'd want that at all. 

 

Laughter is a haunting sound when it comes from a grave. 

 

~*~ 

 

I haven’t succumbed to madness completely just yet. The fact that every so often my mind surfaces enough to realize what’s really going on is proof of that. How can I be mad if I am fully aware of losing my mind slowly but surely? It's an ever worsening process. I shatter into pieces of myself and pull myself back together less whole than I was before. I'm losing it one tiny shard at the time. It will be long before I'm gone completely, even though I sometimes notice how far the insanity has spread. It's like I'm holding myself back, which doesn't seem right. I want to lose my mind, I want to succumb to madness and find comfort in the twisting ruins of my own mind. So why I am only halfway there? Whenever I'm lucid enough to think about my progressing insanity I fight hard to distract myself enough to slip away again as soon as possible. A while ago I broke the fingers of my left hand and watched them heal. It took much too long. 

 

Currently I am counting my ribs and listening to Kei’s voice with half an ear. I think he is reciting a poem that was once a song, but he seems to have lost the melody. His voice sounds raw and strained. Most likely he’s feeling the effects of our prison just as strong as me and the vampire do. It’s not comforting to know that I’m not completely insane, yet. I know that Kei is not real and the vampire is not real either. There is only me, but shifting the pieces of my centuries old personality around like a puzzle grants keeps my mind from wandering too far. 

 

My ribs are protruding too much. The hunger is straining my body. I haven’t fed for so long that I have starting biting myself. My arms look horrible and I barely have enough strength left to heal properly anymore. Should I lose it so completely again that I tear my own body open and drown myself in my own blood, I believe the wounds wouldn't even close. What would it feel like to spend eternity with your body ripped to pieces? I wonder if it would hurt forever or if the pain would fade. 

 

I might try to find out. 

 

I’m thinning out and the part of me capable of black humour is glad Sho is not around to see me. Small and slender as I am I don’t really have a single pound to spare. Where feeding keeps a vampire’s body in perfect shape, lack thereof does the same to us as to humans. We drop weight, only to us it’s not lethal, but eternal torment once more. 

 

Ah, the pain, like an iron fist clenching around my insides. Hunger, need, madness. 

 

The longer I lie awake down here, the worse it gets. I have grown restless with hunger, the instinct to kill, to spill blood, to feed is overpowering. I want to wreak havoc on the weak flesh of a victim, but can only turn against myself. As I trace my ribcage once more I grit my teeth, push and drag. The skin tears easily, the flesh rips apart beneath my claws and the blood flows. The scent has me writhing and panting in sheer blood lust. I don't realize what path I have set myself upon yet again until it's to late. 

 

I need to kill. 

 

I need to feed. 

 

Give me blood. 

 

Give me a victim. 

 

Give me death. 

 

Give me… just a piece of… release… escape… peace… 

 

Kill me... release me… tear me to pieces… let me rot… 

 

Blood… 

 

Death… 

 

Decay… 

 

Give me… 

 

With a scream I jerk around, not caring about the injuries I’m causing, not caring if I’m strong enough to heal, and then I sink my teeth into Kei’s arm. He yelps in pain and I moan in pleasure because it’s blood. I don’t care that it tastes rotten in my mouth because it’s dead, I don’t care that I’m only making things worse. I have unleashed the beast once more and until it realizes that by drinking Kei’s blood it’s only weakening itself I can pull back, succumb to darkness that does not come from sleep, safe from tormenting dreams and lost in the illusion of the real death that I can never have. 

 

Give me back the piece of my soul that makes me feel complete, the piece that helps me bear all suffering because there's something worth being strong for. Someone... 

 

~*~ 

 

The wounds have stopped healing halfway through. 

 

I am empty. 

 

I need something and I don't know what it is. 

 

That missing piece of me... 

 

Give me... 

 

~*~ 

 

“Sho…”

 

There is no answer. There will never be. 

 

And yet I call out to him again and again. 

 

“He's not here.”

 

I close my eyes and fight the tears. Maybe if I lose my mind I can imagine it’s not Kei talking to me, not that person with my own voice, but Sho instead. Would insanity be merciful enough? 

 

I lick my lips and taste the blood, old and dry, fresh and wet. It’s all over me and fills my senses. I chuckle. The irony… how careful I used to be not to let the children see me with blood dripping from my lips. If you saw me now, Sho, you’d be appalled. You’d cry, because you are a cry baby, and I would brush away your tears and lick my fingers when you’re not looking anymore because I’ve always wanted to taste you – not your body, not your blood, but your tears, because they would be the only thing about you my touch could not taint. They would always be pure. 

 

“Sho…”

 

“He is not…”

 

“Shut up.”

 

It’s the first time I’ve answered Kei. We are both stunned into silence. 

 

And then we smile, because we are falling to pieces and that’s fine. We are going insane and we don’t mind. 

 

After all, a piece of us will always remain buried underneath the ruins of what we once were and in our more lucid moments we might look at it and hope against hope that Sho’s soul will be reborn and dig up this piece of us, nurture it back to life and make us complete again. 

 

These are the twisted roads my mind wanders right until I notice the burning in my lungs. The lack of air drags the pieces of my sanity back together once more just enough for me to deal with this consciously. 

 

There is no mercy for me, no release, just the knowledge that I'm running out of air. 

 

I will suffocate. 

 

Kei chuckles, a cruel way of mocking me. 

 

“And you still won't die...”

 


	5. Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there.

My chest starts to tighten. This is not happening. This can't be happening. I should have known it would happen, but still, not like this, not to me, not while I'm still aware of anything. Let me breathe, let me breathe, just let me... just one more breath... 

 

The need for air is something every living being feels. 

 

Watch the world around you. Everything and everyone breathes. It's the very essence of life. In and out. Slowly. Feel the air fill up your lungs, stretch them. Oxygen makes your body function. Keeps your heart beating and your blood flowing, grants you a voice and the ability to think. Move around, because you can do so only as long as you can breathe. What could be more intimate than being close enough to someone to draw the same breath? What could be more pleasant than your loved one’s breath ghosting over you skin, the promise of a touch, the ghost of sex? 

 

Your breath is your life. No healthy person can voluntarily stop breathing. The need for air is just too great. You would pass out and your body would resume breathing for you. It is impossible not to breathe. 

 

Even for vampires. 

 

Vampires are dead, at least in everything but theory. Someone like me is nothing more than a walking corpse. Doomed to wander the earth and feed on the lives of others. I am not alive. My heart does not beat. My blood does not flow. I am dead. 

 

And yet I breathe. 

 

I don't need to. Lack of oxygen cannot kill a vampire. It’s not from lack of trying that I have reached this conclusion. It’s a reflex. I fill my lungs with air whether I want to or not. Some parts of my undead body just work the way they always used to, I guess. My blood does not flow, but I can still get hard. I have desires and urges; they are jut not as easily awakened within me as they used to be. My wounds heal quickly, but that does not prevent them from happening or hurting. Blood loss weakens me, broken bones hinder me, torn skin and flesh hurt me. Put a bullet into my brain and I will be useless for a few hours. Snap my spine and I won’t be able to walk. Get me in the mood and I will be hard for you. Play me like a precious instrument and I will come for you. Strangle me and I will fight for breath on instinct. Believe me, I have tried to stop. I’ve always known I couldn’t kill myself by not breathing, but I needed to know what the loss of something so substantial would feel like. 

 

It’s horrible. 

 

Have you ever tried to stay under water longer than your breath lasted? Then you know the feeling. So even though I don't need air to survive, I really can't stop drawing breath. 

 

Over the time I have come to treasure my breath, though. Inhaling makes me feel a little more human. It’s something every human being has to do. So if I have to do it… it’s not that bad, right? I feel a little more alive when I’m able to breathe. It's all about the illusion of being human. The air rushes in and out of my lungs; so rhythmical, so normal. It's soothing. 

 

Then there’s my voice. Air is what makes your vocal chords vibrate, which in turn lends you your voice. I need that voice more than I ever needed it before right now. Without a voice, Kei won't be able to talk to me. 

 

We are running out of air now. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think I actually want to be alone down here. Alone with the beast, Kei reduced to silence by the lack of oxygen. Does Kei exist without a voice? He will not be able to move much. His voice will fail him without air. He will be still as a corpse, and just as cold. A body torn open and dead, but not decaying. A mind broken and bent, but still there. No release, no escape. No life, no death. Just something in between that is the worst hell. 

 

Do I still exist? 

 

Will I still exist when the last people who remember me die? 

 

With my memory wiped from the world, with no one knowing where I could possibly be, trapped and alone with the beast and Kei – what will I be? 

 

My mind will be reduced to the faintest glimmer without oxygen to feed my brain. I will spend eternity motionless, without breath, without voice, no sound reaching my ears, nothing to look at, and yet I will be aware. 

 

I won't exist anymore, but I will still be left behind. 

 

If rats would be able to come in here and feed on my never-rotting but open flesh, what would I feel? 

 

It must be a curious sensation, the flesh gnawed from my bones, what remains of my body scattered within the stomachs of vermin. I might still be conscious then, on some very absurd level. Because I can't die. I think. Not even when eaten alive. I might be able to regenerate even then. Pieces of me, digested and left behind, regenerating into the pieces they once were. A muscle here, some skin there, an eyeball just around the corner. Shattered into too many pieces to count, and still very much aware of it. 

 

“The rats would suffocate. Just what you are doing now. It shows. Your mind is already reduced to this freakshow.”

 

Kei has a point, I must admit, though his voice is awfully weak and distant. Still, it's an interesting thought and won't leave me for a moment. I think. Or has it left me already? 

 

What has been on my mind again? 

 

…

 

Oh, right. 

 

The rats. 

 

I wonder... if pieces of me were scattered all over the place – I still think it would be an interesting feeling, by the way, being conscious through that... if one can get beyond the pain, which I'm sure I could accomplish in a few centuries. Anyway... I'm sorry for getting off track like this, but it's not all that easy to focus your thoughts when the rats are suffocating. 

 

If I was scattered into pieces all over the place, would my limbs reattach themselves? Would the many pieces and parts form a new body, and would that person actually be me? 

 

You know. 

 

The thing about lying around in a place like this... you have a lot of free time on your hands. And some things just seem like awfully good ideas then. 

 

I raise my left hand and gaze at my fingers. 

 

You know, I never wanted to marry anyway. 

 

Hello victim. 

 

The beast cheers me on. 

 

“Stupid idea”, Kei whispers, but I can barely hear him anymore.

 

I look at my thumb and start counting. 

 

One – Sho would complain about my lack of manicure here, I guess. 

 

Two – funny time to notice how short my fingers are. 

 

Three – used to be my favourite when I was alive, by the way. 

 

Four – Farewell. 

 

Instead of tearing it off with my other hand I bite down. The beast is still screaming for blood, and it's delight mingles with my breathless laughter as I feel flesh tearing, blood spilling – though not as much as there should be, I guess. Sinews rip, and then there's bone, and bone is an effort. I don't usually bite through bone. There's a first time for everything. It snaps and I pull the digit from my mouth, gazing at it in wonder. 

 

Doesn't actually look like it used to be part of me. 

 

Dazedly I look at my left hand, and sure enough I'm missing my left ring finger. I can see a piece of bone sticking out there, white surrounded by red which really should be black because it's dead and not alive and why is it not bleeding and didn't I want to see if it would reattach itself and oh god I just bit off that finger didn't I and it hurts fuck fuck why did I... 

 

Kei screams. 

 

I drop the finger in surprise and flinch, and when I try to get away from the sound my teeth smash and scrape against stone. It doesn't make the pain go away at all. 

 

It does make the air run out faster, though. 

 

I freeze when it happens. 

 

Kei? 

 

Kei, I think we made mistake here. 

 

Don't panic. I can still draw a breath. See? 

 

In. 

 

And out. 

 

And... 

 

…

 

No. Please. Don't. 

 

Give me... 

 

Just one... 

 

Let me... 

 

Just... 

 

One... 

 

I'm suffocating. I need air. I don't want this. I can't do this. Don't make me live through this. I'm not strong enough for this. I will never feed on a human being again. I will take animals, not just animals, I'll take rats, the most dirt-ridden ones if I have to – anything! Just spare me. This one time, let me not feel a thing. 

 

Whomever I'm begging with must realize that the promise is in vain, though. Of course, I will never feed on a human being again. How could I from down here? 

 

My chest is burning. Air. 

 

I need... 

 

I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there. How can this be? How can it just be used up like that? Breathing is the one thing that comes naturally, air is the one thing that's supposed to be everywhere, so why? Why is it failing me? 

 

I bare my fangs, clench my teeth. My whole face contorts with sheer effort. I can feel myself shaking badly. I'm struggling for that tiny bit of air I need to relief the horribly empty feeling in my chest, but it just isn't there. 

 

There is nothing. 

 

It feels as though my lungs are collapsing in on themselves. 

 

Tears are streaming down my face. The pain, by all the deities and demons, the pain; I jerk and my head is smashed against stone. My whole body convulses as I try to draw breath but I just CAN'T. Help me, make this go away, because it's just too much, not enough. 

 

My eyes are wide open. The tears burn on my skin and numb my cheeks. Through everything I'm aware of the noises torn from my squirming and jerking body. Choked sounds fall from my parted lips. 

 

This will be the last sound that reaches my ears for eternity. There won't be anything afterwards. No screams. No voices in the dark. No cackling laughter. I'm losing myself, but it's not enough to grant me any kind of release, not enough to finally be too much. 

 

My fingers rake across the stone, leaving marks too deep. The skin is torn away, the nails break off, but I don't care. I can't care anymore, because all I can feel is that hole in my chest that I can't fill, never will be able to fill again. This is eternity. It will never stop. It won't ever get better. The pain will never leave me. My lungs will always remain empty. Eternal suffocation. 

 

The struggling weakens. I claw at my chest, my throat, trying to find some way to get air in there or to make the pain go away, something to relieve me of this torture. I feel my throat ripping, I feel bone under my fingertips, cold blood and hot tears on my cheeks. 

 

I cry hard, and I would sob if I still could. It's not just pain driving the tears from my eyes now, but it's everything. My fate, so horrible that my mind has already shattered when faced with it, my regrets, my dying hopes, my dreams. The faces of my victims, the wire cutting into my heart. Sho's blue eyes and Yi-Che's smile. Toshi's laughter and Son's worries. Blood in my mouth and a child in my arms. Luka's song and the bittersweet memories of beaches. Love and Loathing. Need and fear. Everything I've always wanted and so much more. 

 

Gone. 

 

With weak movements I wipe my face, smearing blood, dirt and tears everywhere. I lie in complete silence while my body jerks every now and then. Kei's voice is gone. Even the beast has reached its limits. And I... 

 

Slowly my eyes slide shut. Forever, I hope. 

 

I give up. 

 


	6. Fading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so I allow everything to fade away.

„You seem troubled.“

 

Sho glances up at me. He's sprawled across the couch. Anyone but me would believe that he's actually paying attention to the movie flickering across the screen. I know my boy much better than that, though. Something is at the forefront of his mind, crawling across his thoughts and tainting his face with a frown. 

 

It's rare to see him serious about something like this. Sho ponders something in earnest, and it won't leave him alone until he got it out at last. 

 

„Kei...“ He catches himself. Annoyance flickers in his eyes. Obviously he wants to share with me but does not dare to. My Sho. Poor little fool.

 

I walk towards him, glass of water in my cold hands. His eyes drop, wandering over my tight pants and much too large shirt. For a moment his gaze catches on the pale skin showing from where I just couldn't be bothered with buttons anymore. Ah. So are we finally going to have the talk? The little human thinks I am not well aware of how he feels towards me. It's not something I can encourage, for it would only lead to heartbreak. For months I've been dreading this talk, knowing that I should just run away. Call me a coward but I can't stand even the thought of the confrontation, of having to be the responsible one here. Why is it always me? I've never asked to be the one to make all the hard decisions. 

 

My fingertips skate over his warm cheek. He is blushing. I will not be the one to initiate this path of conversation. I'd rather run away from it completely. How I want to give in, how I want to flee from it. 

 

„I have never been kissed“, Sho murmurs and then flinches back as though I have slapped him.

 

I've been wondering about this. He's old enough that I should have smelled another person on him long ago. Not yet. Perhaps he is still harbouring hopes he should not have. So young, so sweet. So naive. 

 

Gently I cup his cheek and lean down. For just this moment I allow myself to be lost in his blue eyes. „That can be helped“ I whisper. Our lips touch and it is perfect. Warmth runs down my spine. His lips are soft and pliant beneath my mouth. The kiss is nothing spectacular and yet means so much to both of us. Soft but intense, simple but saying a thousand words. It tastes of the sweetest goodbye. 

 

After a while Sho pulls back to look at me. „You realize this is not how it happened?“ 

 

I don't dare to look at anything but him. I know that our apartment slowly dissolves around us while the walls are drawing closer, closer, closing in and trapping me. A tear slides down my cheek. 

 

„Yes“, I whisper and break the spell that's been holding us together like this, allowing everything to fade away.

 

~*~ 

 

There is no blood-smeared stone above me. 

 

I am not in pain. 

 

Any moment now I will draw a breath. 

 

It's just a bad dream. 

 

Just a nightmare. 

 

Kei-chan. 

 

Kei-chan... 

 

Don't cry. 

 

Just a nightmare. 

 

~*~ 

 

The voice fades as I open my eyes. I can see a plain ceiling above me, white with a tiny stain. 

 

"Okaasan?" I hear a child murmuring. A moment later I realize it's me. Of course, it's me. My name is Kei. I am six years old. I think I might have had a very strange dream just now. I can't even really remember what it was all about. Maybe mother was right when she told me eating cookies in the middle of the night was a bad thing. Has she found me out, I wonder? I only stole one tiny freshly-baked cookie, I swear. Or maybe two. But not more than that. Honestly. 

 

Yawning I rub my eyes and get up. It's sunday, I think, or maybe saturday. Somehow I can't tell exactly. Maybe I'm still half-asleep. Mother always says that when father holds the newspaper upside down at breakfast. "You seem to be half-asleep, darling." Does that mean I'm like father? A grin stretches my face. Don't you like the feeling of a smile? The way it aches if you smile too broadely for a long time? I like that feeling. Kind of makes the world seem bright. 

 

Still grinning I rush down the stairs. I want to tell them that I'm like father. They might be proud or happy. Father might pet my hair and mother might call me her sweet boy and hug me. I love them. They are my parents, and they are the best parents in the whole wide world. 

 

Mother stands with her back to me, preparing breakfast. The smell tells me it's my favourite. Yay! Father has hidden behind the newspaper. Sometimes I try to match the few words I have already learned to read with my father. The headlines are full of words I can already understand. But they rarely fit with the man behind them, which is kind of sad. I wonder how to describe my father. The first word that always comes to mind is "big". Then again, he always says I'm tiny, so I just might be wrong about that. 

 

Mother turns around. "Dear, what have I said about not dressing properly for breakfast?" 

 

I can't answer. There is something wrong about my mother. She looks lovely, as always. Her hair is black and shiny, her clothes are colourful and pretty. I love my mother. She is the most wonderful woman and that is saying a lot. The world must be a big place, at least twice the size of our town, and there are already lots of people here. I think. She tells me fairy tales when she tucks me into bed. She's probably very beautiful. 

 

Except that now she has no face. It seems wrong. Shouldn't there be two eyes, a mouth, a nose? Where is her smile? Where is my mother? 

 

She's not here. This is not her. I back away slowly. I don't want my father to lower the paper, afraid that I will see nothing but that faceless head. What happened? I've only been asleep one night. Your life can't change overnight. Or can it? 

 

Thump-thump. 

 

So I turn around to run, but there is a woman. I'm holding her and she asks „Why“ and I can't answer. I hear her heartbeat fading slowly – no I can't, because I'm just a child, just a human child... just a monster. She looks at me and she begs, tears streaming down her cheeks, and I can't cry for her. Part of me wants to weep for the life I have taken, the first of many, and part of me enjoys her pain, enjoys the way her blood feels on my fangs, my lips, my tongue. 

 

Thump-thump. 

 

Finally I let her drop. She shatters into a million pieces, like pages from a book that is filled with pain and longing. Words unspoken, hopes unfulfilled, goals unreached. I have taken so much from her and I can see it. I have taken her life, have taken her dreams and aspirations. 

 

The baby she planned on having. The man she hoped to marry. The picture she wanted to painted. The people he wanted to meet. The things he wanted to show his parents. The adventures he wanted to embark upon. The love he hoped to find. The family he had though he'd always have. 

 

If this was a fairy tale there'd be a prince to slay the demon. And rescue the boy buried behind fangs and green eyes. 

 

Thump-thump. 

 

This is not a fairy tale. 

 

I stripped away their faces. I took everything from him, and in the end he took everything from other people. He has become a monster and I remember each face. 

 

Just my own mother remains blank as she reaches out to me. I'm terrified of her touch. If her fingertips reach me, something terrible will happen. And so turn and run, leaving her behind and my childhood home and my first victim with her fading heartbeat, and I run until I'm surrounded by utter darkness. 

 

Thump. 

 

The only thing I hear is a heartbeat and I know it comes from all of them, from all the people whose blood stains my hands. Beautiful women, friendly men, innocent laughter and evil schemes, Sho and Toshi and Son and Luka and Kei and that Japanese girl from the store around the corner and that Chinese criminal from last week's raid and my mother and the faceless thing inside our kitchen... 

 

Thump. 

 

So young they could almost be children. So old they know they will leave soon. So much in the middle that they can still enjoy it. Sweet and bitter and aroused and frightened and wonderful and revolting and one of them won't die, his blonde hair and green eyes a constant mockery as we stare at each other through the mirror, and each time I swear to kill him so that he will stop. 

 

But I can't. 

 

Th...u...mp... 

 

Silence. 

 

All dead. 

 

All gone. 

 

All fading. 

 

A fairy tale gone wrong. 

 

In the darkness I smile. 

 

Finally. 

 

~*~ 

 

Once upon a time there was a vampire. He killed and murdered and he laughed and he danced on graves. 

 

Once upon a time there was a vampire. He suffered and ached and hoped for release that would never come, because he did not deserve it. 

 

Once upon a time there was a vampire. He lost everything, found it once more and then lost it all over again, as though he was truly cursed. What a pathetic little fool. His story is funny if you look at it from the right angle, because he just stumbled along and tries and fails. It's comedy. It's something you will want to laugh and cry at. Not at the same time, though, please. That would make you look as though you lost your mind. 

 

Once upon a time there was a human. He met a vampire. He smiled. He changed everything. 

 

They never got around to living happily ever after. The vampire was imprisoned beneath the earth, rightful punishment for the crimes he had committed. The human died, because that's what happens to figures like him. He was no hero, but you'd have been rooting for him anyway. This story never had any heroes. No black and white, only shades of grey. Too many of them, hard to distinguish. Never easy. Always painful. 

 

Fairy tales suck. 

 

Once upon a time Kei broke and I have lost track of the pieces. 

 

What are you waiting for? No one will say „The End“ because there is no end to this. It's eternal. It will never stop. Endless, just like the darkness behind closed eyelids, meanlingless words fading into nothing. 

 

~*~ 

 

„You realize this is not how it happened?“

 

„Leave me alone.“

 

We kiss. 

 

We don't kiss. 

 

She smiles. 

 

He burns. 

 

They die. 

 

I turn away. I keep looking. I don't know. I don't want to know. I want to go home. I can't. 

 

Who are you? 

 

Why are you not here? 

 

Would your presence make things better? 

 

Where am I? 

 

What happened? 

 

Who am I? 

 

~*~ 

 

„Who am I?“

 

Luka doesn't look up. I can see that he is tense. I want to cry, even though I'm not sure why. But I can't cry anyway. There are no tears in me and I find no reasons for that. 

 

„Luka, what happened to me?“

 

But he does not answer. 

 

The carpet beneath my feet is carpet no longer but sand, and we are at the beach. The sun is rising slowly. 

 

„This is how I always wanted it to happen, Luka.“

 

We sit next to each other, calm and collected as the sun rises. We won't scream in pain, but will suffer in silence. After all we will be rewarded for enduring. Release. Blissful death. Hell cannot be worse than the life we are leading, this life of stealing blood and stealing hope. 

 

„You realize this is not how it happened?“

 

I wish they would stop doing that. I wish they would just leave me be. 

 

„Yes“ I whisper and I'm looking down at my hands.

 

There's a sketchbook in my fingers and white sheets beneath my legs. Glinting in the dim light the goldfish circle their home. It's a plain fishtank, nothing inside of it except water and the animals. I wonder if living inside of there feels like living inside my body. There is nothing inside to keep you blissfully ignorant of the fact that there are things on the outside that you will never be able to reach, for you are a mere prisoner. 

 

The sketchbook is empty. I gave up being an artist after I was turned. Still before my inner eyes I can see things forming with the grey strokes of a pencil. Sho's distinct profile. Yi-Che's beautiful smile. Happy laughter. Companionable silence. The perfection that is smoke from a shared cigarette curling into the nightsky. 

 

Blood dripping from pale fingertips. 

 

Glass shattering. 

 

Stairs collapsing. 

 

A child's innocence. 

 

A mother's fairy tale. 

 

My own nightmare. 

 

Where am I? 

 

There's a scratching and a rumbling and I don't pay attention to it. 

 

Part of me knows I lay in darkness, broken in body and mind. I have all but suffocated that part because I don't want to listen to it anymore. I'm where I wanted to be, buried deep within myself, all but unaware of the outside world. Here I can be. Here I can lose myself. 

 

I am floating. 

 

Life and death, mortality and monstrosity are far behind me now. I can still feel them on my skin, like droplets of water that have yet to dry. It is not an entirely unpleasant sensation, knowing that these words are losing more importance which each fleeting moment. Here there is just a being that knows nothing of emotions, of past, present or future, of hopes and dreams, of urges and desires, of guilt and blood, and I am becoming one with it. 

 

I will not fight it. 

 

I ignore the scratching noise until it fades away. 

 

It is not there. 

 

It's not important whether this is a nightmare or reality. I have stopped existing anyway. I have left the shell that is my body behind. Each memory that plays through my mind I observe with the mind of a stranger. They will be left behind anyway, fading into nothing as I lose myself. Memories, dreams and nightmares alike dissolve as I cease existing because there is nothing to hold them together anymore. 

 

Fading away. 

 

I know that this is how it will happen. 

 


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am. And yet... I am not.

I am floating.

  
I have faded.

  
Words have no meaning for me anymore. If I was still was aware of anything I would probably conclude that it is not an entirely unpleasant sensation not to know the importance and weight of concepts like life and death and regret. Time as well is nothing I can perceive; a second I exist could just as well be an eternity. I have no shape, and neither has the world around me. I am everywhere. I am nowhere.

  
And yet I am. Or am I?

  
There is not a conscious thought within me. I am simply there. Where I have come from, what I was once supposed to be does not matter. I do not question my existence, for I do not remember anything beyond it. To me, there is just colourless darkness, thick and syrupy. No sense of a body, just floating. No life, just existence. No identity, just... me, I guess. Maybe I have once had a name, but it has faded away like so much else. Maybe I have once been someone, maybe I have always been just kind of there, existing but not living. Who knows? Who cares?

  
I don't. If I have ever been something more than this at one point, I have lost all connections to that being. I neither mourn the potential loss, nor do I reminiscent. There is no consequence to those contemplations. Here in the darkness there is just me, the fragment of a presence, alone, pierced on the remnants of what might once have been a mind, a soul, a person.

  
I am.

  
And yet I am not.

  
I will stay here, for I don't know a world beyond the darkness, and even if I did, I would not care about it. Why would I? It would be a world of the living, of those broken less than me. Thoughts have long stopped dripping from the confinements of my mind, for there is no mind left to form them. I am shattered enough to not even feel the pain I should be in, for there are more things broken and damaged about me than just my mind.

  
I have forgotten how to feel. I have not become one with the nothingness around me, but cracked and broke into so many tiny pieces that there is not enough left for things to connect the way they are supposed to.

  
Lost. Found.

  
Despite all that, however, every once in a while something sneaks up to me and disrupts the peaceful existence I have adapted to. I can't grasp what it's supposed to be, but somehow I know that I've been waiting for this and that it comes too late. Without a sense of positions it's hard to tell if that strangeness comes closer or fades away as everything else has eventually done.

  
And yet…

  
There is… something.

  
Maybe. ..

  
Something disrupts everything I am, will be, ever was. At one uncertain point in time, everything changes. A peculiar… warmth, blooming where the cheek of a living being would be and then spreading from there. Tendrils of it curl through me, dig into me, take a hold of me. The sensation grows more acute, more defined, and the word pain momentarily has meaning again before it disappears from the ruin of my mind and leaves behind only that overwhelming, burning sensation.

  
The world lurches and the veil of darkness is ripped away for just a second or two. Blinding brightness replaces it. Everything rushes back at once, and for a moment I am whole and I am... I am... Kei... I... can see, I can hear, and by the gods I can feel.

  
At the edge of my vision there are faces, dirty from digging and scared, horrified by what they found, pale and green with shock and repulsion. One of them retches, another one gags and someone chokes. That someone is me.

  
There is blue the shade of the sky on a warm summer afternoon, and just a hint of gold, sun-kissed or maybe rays of sunshine, soft and filthy and familiar; and light, a light in the dark, a light so bright it hurts my eyes. The scorching sensation, the pain is still there and I scream, yet there is no sound. Then everything fades once more within the blink of an eye. The need to scream dies out, the burning fades to warmth which becomes cold and then nothing, the light dims and darkness descends once more.

  
The final curtain.

  
I am scorched from existence, plunged into the kind of darkness that is too deep to ever be released from.

  
I die.

  
And yet…

 

~*~

 

The End


End file.
